"ferryman" poems
Lay my body rich with coins
As my dawn turns to dusk I will depart
Bless my soul to be reborn
And pray I keep my heart
Charon waits upon his boat
To carry me to the Otherside
I'll travel The River Styx
And marry time, as I am Waiting's bride
Bearded Ferryman of the dead
Refuse me not as I pay your debt
Tell Hades to lift the gates
For fate and I have met
Guide this monstrous beast
Along the waters spine
As we set off towards Afterlife
Where waits the Underworlds divine
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
Scraggly curl hair bounces in the air
wagging with whisky eyes breezy pleasing the eclectic electric hectic now mind
like finding a papaya inside an oyster
battery powered like a pomegranate passionfruit flower growing and glowing
around my trinity heart with the noise of a sphere's galactic ******
Crystal Citrine Mountains provide water fountains of sunlight
as so tye-dye t-shirt hip-cat hippos smokin' coconut shisha bathe in barrels
of bourbon.
Lion snakes spit words of worlds hurling nebulous timeline's spiraling
and crashing and splashing baptism ripples together painting Pollack Splatters
with the aroma of Byrd Jazz Jam on rye-whisky bread.
Fractal Berries served by the Far Out Faerrie Ferryman Skeletan with bejeweled emerald eyes
winks while I read in the reeds panting in pan-flutes while water rabbits scamper
into clay enclaves to bathe in pinecone designed sand-tubs.
The hieroglyphic phoenix twists and skip-scats neon green vinyl
turning the wind inside out to x-ray flames of fireworks.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
*I Played cards with death,
He asked me to pick,
Pick what I said?
A card it shall teach you of life
I picked
One,
Then two,
Lastly three,
*Have you picked wisely
Death aske me,
King
*Queen,
Then the joker made three.
Who will live the longest?
Death pointed his ***** fingers,
I looked, thought who would it be,
I said the king or queen would be last
Death cold stare looked at me.
The king when visited
Did try to buy his life from death,
Death doesn't need gold you see
But I gave the king a coin
For the ferryman to take his soul.
I said the queen would be my second guess,
But again he looked coldly upon me,
She asked me to be her king
But I whispered I am the god of death
to be a king would be no use me.
She was taken again no use of gold
But I once again gave a coin .
It couldn't be the jester?
A creepy smile feel upon his face,
Death said, what is life with out laughter
I came for him, he made me laugh
He did an impression,
He impersonated me,
I laughed out loud,
I hadn't done that in
A million years.
So I told keep others laughing
I will give you and those extra years
But like all I will come for thee,
So the tale was told.
Laughter is a way to keep life going
But everyone will be visited,*
King,
Queen,
Jester
You and me
Just keep laughing it will add on years to your life.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 11:15 AM UTC
She sits on the bow and dangles her feet
A rigid, cloaked figure looms on the stern
She runs her hands across the skeletal vessel
Thick mist twists and slivers past her cheek
A coin-filled cage hangs off the Ferryman's arm
as he pulls an ore through the ominous glow
A rusty lantern rocks and steadily creeks
Bright green flames lick the Ferryman's robe
Into the void, into the churning ink
He gently rows across the river of woe
where no one hears her scream
May 22, 2021
May 22, 2021 at 11:28 PM UTC
I
I learnt this week
that time and distance
can be friends to memory
their respective lengths
only wet and sharpen
the edge of love
but for us dear friend
we hold hard to hope
that we may
one day soon
share the present
and live each moment
in each other's heart.
II
Hearing you on Holkham beach
- whose soul is greater than the ocean
whose spirit stronger than the sea -
did I doubt for a moment
that you, though buffeted
by a cold east wind
would never age for me,
nor fade, nor die.
Nor you for me (she said)
Goodbye, my love,
a thousand times goodbye.
Write me well (she said)
and turned and ran.
III
The Reedham ferry was but a river's width
and yet I stood at the water's brink
and watched the reeds quiver in the wind,
watched the rain splatter on the puddled path.
All around to the human eye
this valley, a plain of grassland
broken only by reed-fringed pools,
was a gentle, unpeopled, easy place.
The absence of relief left
no fixed frame of reference.
Places apart from one another
would concertina and merge.
Tempted to cross I waved a no
to the ferryman in his quayside hut
then turned and walked quickly
back down the long, low road.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
On the floor of the river styx, frogs burrowing peer over muck duvets to watch me press like a violet between the cookbook pages of the water and the land. I went overboard-
I am addicted to the darkness between worlds.
Somewhere above me, I see the moon. She doesn’t try to warn me, she doesn’t bother reminding me that I can’t breathe. Heavy currents like snakes blur her face into fractured crystal tears that wash me over with sweet exasperation.
Sedated by the salt toward the other side, where the ferryman flips my coin and hums a tune without words about all rivers rushing toward the sea.
He doesn’t ask me why I chose this route, just grins a toothless grin
And winks
And tosses my coin into the water
without
So much
As a wish.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 3:51 PM UTC
I just bribed the ferryman, oh yes, I bribed him well
Don't matter how much mischief because we're both headed to hell
I bribed the man to take some time to tell me of his life
He told me of the way he takes the coinage for his wife
He told me he writes poetry, but only in his head
He wrote some lovely lullabies (and love songs for the dead)
The man is quite a cook and made some killer Wonton soup
Then he told me of his wish to make a knit and crochet group
The ferryman that took the ****** seemed like a really awesome guy
And it almost made it worth it that I had had to die
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 1:28 AM UTC
Ferryman, ferryman don't come for me,
the children sing freely
in the bright sunlight.
When gathered together on a dark
stormy night...
they pull covers over heads
to stay out of sight.
He takes the coins
from the eyes of the dead.
His payment for the travels
he plans ahead.
When payment is made
he guides his guests
to make their final hopeless quest.
He beckons with a gruesome smile
and they board his craft with little guile.
The river is swift...the river is long...
He ferries them right along until he
crosses the river when he blows his horn.
He looks around and all are gone.
It is said on dark lonely nights,
the Ferryman is out to fright.
Who dares to board his ferry boat
are the dead who have lost all hope.
When innocent children hear his horn
they run like hell to beat his harm.
Oct 17, 2010
Oct 17, 2010 at 7:40 AM UTC
In the lowland fens at the worlds end,
Like the ferryman, a blue heron waits,
Eyes of dragon fly, hover, over still water,
His legs are the oars rowing to the dead.
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 8:26 PM UTC
I don't know how it came to be
To have so many holes in me
But here I cry
By and by
Bleeding from the heart
Where so many rivers start.
I cannot explain
This inexorable pain
As I cross this river Styx
Wondering how I'd come to this
But here I am
****** and Dammed
Crying cold tears
Wondering what fate nears.
I remain here with the ferryman
Wondering how I was ever a merry man.
Crying my tears of blood
Just as any man would.
Touched so high in grace
****** for all my race.
So burning is this torment
Yet cold, silent, and dormant.
But I am no betrayer. No, Not yet
No sin increases my fare
Charon does not bring me to that gate
But rather back home to finish my fate.
For I am not dead
And it is not living that I dread.
I have only been shown this torture
So I may avoid it in future.
I have no place in that weeping forest
Just as Dante, I was but a tourist.
But so my sorrow deep and cold
Should not permeate into my old
But rather it shall remain
a past pain.
O I shall remember
these such foul members
But it is that which makes me
Not breaks me.
These are that which become me
For I shall not succumb to these.
And so these folds shall make me
stronger
Till I feels these holes,
These rivers in my heart,
These tears of blood,
This passing of the laurel,
These faults within my ore,
No longer.
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 1:03 AM UTC
Picture yourself unemployed, your life now in bin bags
With no home, no car and no roof over you
No food no boots no one to hold onto
You children don't recognise you
Whilst high on a hillside the political powers dine upon luxury food
Sipping their champers drinking your money
And looking down upon you
Using your money to fund and support all of their business intrests
Taken your life away, nothing left today
Lucy in the park with TB
Lucy in the park with TB
Lucy in the park with TB
ohh OOh Poor Lucy
Morning has come and her fingers now blue her face is dark and won't move
Her daughter can't wake her she cries "oh mummy"the coalition have killed you..
The government killed here with policy cuts and media lies each day
Cameron and Clegg Lining their pockets as more more people die
Lucys now gone on a boat to the heavens
the ferryman took her away took her today
Lucy died in the park with TB
Lucy in the park with TB
Lucy in the park with TB
Poor Lucy
Oh wow
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 2:44 PM UTC
qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem
Bejesus we walked so far!
It was beautiful country, mind,
feet dappling through hedgerows
that led from the city, in silence,
to rest where all flesh shall come.
I remember how it started,
walled in with the others.
Lord you could dance!
How were they to comprehend
that the kink in my arm
and your off-beat jive
could lead us unguided
to narrow pathways forcing single file?
By a river we sat together—
amid long words and fingerprints
your skin bled dark with guilt
and for my part I saw coracles
sprout upon your breath.
We weighed down these little craft
with the chains of our sins
and tied fast the bones of our future
as payment for the ferryman.
One day perhaps, the river will dissolve to ash,
revealing our two disciples
discarded as the chance to heal,
there will be love
like a great and gentle pulse
mingling with cold stones
and memories our
downcast eyes, cheekbones to the fore.
Oct 22, 2011
Oct 22, 2011 at 11:07 AM UTC
The gentleman in the black trench coat
breathed out
a puff of smoke
and said,through the fog,
"I am a breeze of relief
to some
and
a storm of wrath
for others."
He took out a crumpled piece of paper.
Read it and mumbled,
"I wonder what your share is?"
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
The underworld calls
I seek entrance to that invisible realm
The ferryman waves
I saved my coins, but he says my coins are no good in his world, so
He tells me to wait
I hear whispers
The ferryman laughs and the turning waters summon me
Another journey
into darkness
I pay the ferryman
The underworld calls
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 1:56 AM UTC
There is a great river this side of Stygia
Before one comes to the first black cataracts
And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.
In that river, far this side of Stygia,
The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,
Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,
No shadow walks. The river is fateful,
Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.
It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington
Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.
It is the third commonness with light and air,
A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction . . .
Call it, one more, a river, an unnamed flowing,
Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore
Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,
The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.
1.8k
In the lowland fens at the worlds end,
Like the ferryman, a blue heron waits,
Eyes of dragon fly, hover, over still water,
His legs are the oars rowing to the dead.
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 1:08 PM UTC
Dark draped the Ferry in confusion
on its final, fatal night.
Survivors spoke of a collision.
They knew that something wasn’t right.
A class of students on a trip
Bound for Jeju from Incheon
The Ferryman said to stay below
but he debarked and they’re all gone.
The ferry Sewol began to list
and water poured in through her ports.
Will anyone present forget the screams?
Souls in torment fill their thoughts.
Search and rescue soon became
a sad and grim recovery.
Their final moments were caught on cellphones
recovered from the silted sea.
The Ferryman has much to answer
About those students left behind
Perhaps in dreams he will be haunted
as young drowned faces flood his mind.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
I can see it in the distance
It's the River they call Styx
An I can see the Boat Man
Waiting for me holding out his hand
Ahead is Charon’s long black boat
In it many souls of those that are dead
A rough unkempt Athenian ******
All dressed in brownish red
His filthy matted beard is uncombed
His eyes burn like hollow pits of fire
A steady glow off the riverbed
A deathly foul oder laced in his attire
What is it that you pay the Ferryman
When you know your pockets are bare
The two coins that are on your eyelids
Will be enough to pay your fare
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
In the lowland fens at the worlds end,
Like the ferryman, a blue heron waits,
Eyes of dragon fly, hover, over still water,
His legs are the oars rowing to the dead.
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 12:50 PM UTC
Seeing faded memories of faded nights
Lying on faded baby blue sheets
The inoxication of two styrofoam cups
Feeling heavy in hands made of feathers
Eyelids the weight of the world compressing onto cheeksbones dried on tongues of new sneakers
Float away
Away
Away
To a world unknown
The cartographer of your own mind
Pick up the next sip
Let it be your map
The thickness sliding to your stomach
The river to bring you home
Ferryman collects no fair from pain filled travelers
Close your eyes
Let the purple jungles captivate you
Your baby blue eyes are the way home
Call me a runaway
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
Ferryman, will I rest in the white roses
that can nevermore grow infirm-
where the rivers from the deep blue forest
are joined by currents of blood and ink?
Ferryman, the forest of the sky is beautiful
like blue bitumen, verdigris life moves, expires and is
reborn between the plane of those who do not die
and above the garden of grief
"Come brother, let us sleep" the phantom says
"One-Hundred and Fifty cuts cover me from head to waist-
old and beautiful tears that keep me from sleep
The heat of my lamp is ready to fade"
Ferryman,where in the house of shade shall I finally rest?
The voice of my lord is broken and dried
In the glade of cedar trees, air flushes and suffocates
The blushing of the moonlight fades and the snowy stars elude her
Make me know the ways of righteousness
The ferryman leads me down the tremulous waters
his words have escaped me like the fearful night's eyes
and in the distance the sudden emptiness of the roses
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
"Democracy is the lesser of all evils."
Says the Liberal.
The Libertarian.
The Corinthian.
The Macedonian.
The Farrier.
The Squire.
The Stoic.
The Astronomer.
The Ornithologist.
The Eschatologist.
The Augur.
The Retiarius.
The Hoplite.
The Centurion.
The Governor.
The General.
The Senator.
The Orator.
The Assassin.
The Emperor.
The Ferryman.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 8:54 PM UTC
Blades may cut me,
the bullet shrapnel bludgeon me,
it's but the apocalypse bomb shelling
that's going to **** me,
a godly hell of nuclear bluster.
It's the kiss of Death,
a *** of demon and savior,
I’m no son of man,
but this boy's doomed to die
under the batter of Armageddon.
It's not postmortem till blood's but vapor
and atoms are melting,
I'm tolling the Ferryman
not till it's Hell on Earth
and my birthday candles are eradicated
in nuclear holocaust and human DNA dust.
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 12:20 AM UTC
Before Old Charon
I now stand
A bushel of berries
for this ferryman
The guardsman of fate
expresses his guilt
For the broken promises
he has spilt
forget the italics
of my brash remark
ford the wide styx
sings the deathly lark
a limerick of longing
hollows my mind
the verbal flogging
hardens my heart from the kind
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
In the lowland fens at the worlds end,
Like the ferryman, a blue heron waits,
Eyes of dragon fly, hover, over still water,
His legs are the oars rowing to the dead.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC